Drawer slide assemblies include slides or rails mounted on both the cabinet carcass and the drawer. The slides attached to the drawer cooperate with the slides mounted to the cabinet carcass to allow telescoping extensions while providing support for the drawer. Drawer slides typically are mounted either underneath the drawer or on the sides of a drawer. Opening devices and closing devices fitted to the rails of drawer slide assemblies help prevent premature damage to the rails as well as the drawer and cabinet by controlling the opening and closing movements of the drawer. A push-to-open device provides a consistent, controlled opening force while also preventing unwanted inadvertent opening of a closed drawer. A soft close device damps inconsistent, user initiated closing forces and provides a controlled closing motion.
Adjustment of the drawer face of a drawer mounted using a drawer slide assembly is important to appearance and is necessary due to manufacturing tolerances. Drawer slide adjustment mechanisms overcome misalignment of an installed drawer relative to the cabinet and any adjacent drawers.
Push-to-open devices, soft close devices, as well as, drawer slide adjustment mechanisms are known in the art. However, the art fails to provide a device attachable to a drawer slide assembly that can accomplish all three functionalities.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005/0231083 to Garde, Jr. discloses a drawer slide assembly with a self closer apparatus that controls the closing movement of a drawer and further provides a vertical adjustment capability. No push-to-open functionality is disclosed.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,802,856 to Hashemi, et al. discloses a drawer slide assembly with a push-latch device. The push-latch device includes a guide block carried by the outer slide member of the drawer slide assembly. The guide block includes a catch biased to a neutral position by a pair of springs. The catch interacts with a pin mounted on the inner slide to retain the drawer slide in a closed position. As the pin is moved into contact with the catch, the inner slide loads a spring which will force the inner slide towards an open position once the pin is released from the catch. No soft close or adjustment capability is disclosed.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,801,120 to Chen, et al. discloses a self-opening and self-closing slide assembly. An open-close device includes a movable unit and a passive unit fixed to a cabinet rail, a synchronic unit attached to an intermediate rail, and a hooking unit mounted to a cabinet rail. Each “unit” includes many components including frames, push members, protrusions, springs, movable members, and links which are complicatedly assembled and precisely positioned such that the units can engage one another. No drawer face adjustability is disclosed.
A simply assembled, compact, cost effective, and easy to operate solution providing a soft close and push-to-open drawer slide assembly capable of adjusting the position of the drawer face relative to the cabinet and any adjacent drawers is needed.